Facilities, player negotiations to open

For the first time since the lockout began on July 1, NBA players are going to be welcomed back to their team facilities, said league spokesman Tim Frank. The league sent a memo to clubs Tuesday announcing the move, plus giving teams permission to begin speaking with agents at 9 a.m. Wednesday -- though deals cannot yet be offered, and no contracts can be signed before Dec. 9.

Teams may host "voluntary player workouts" and physicals. Training camps will not open until Dec. 9, and the regular season is expected to begin Christmas Day with marquee matchups, including a Miami-Dallas rematch of last season's NBA Finals.

A person familiar with the league's Christmas schedule told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the NBA will feature five games this year on Dec. 25 instead of the originally planned three. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the NBA does not plan to announce the Christmas lineup until later this week. The decision for the league to schedule five Christmas games was first reported by The New York Times.

But before games can be played, a new collective bargaining agreement has to be signed. And for that to happen, the National Basketball Players Association must re-form as a union.

The NBPA needs to have 260 signed cards from players in favor of re-forming the union by Thursday night or it cannot continue to work on a new labor agreement with the league, sources close to the situation told ESPN.com's Marc Stein.

Union sources said Wednesday that the NBPA will "not be able to negotiate, draft and ratify a new CBA by next week and teams will not be able to open training camps and begin signing players next Friday as hoped" unless at least 260 signed union authorized cards are received Thursday night by the American Arbitration Association.

NBA players received the authorization cards with an explanatory memo Tuesday.

Players in the antitrust suit against the league agreed to settle the case, pending the re-forming of the union and the finalization of the collective bargaining agreement, SI.com reported. The U.S. District Court judge in Minneapolis, where the lawsuit was filed, needs to approve the deal.

The settlement had been expected since players and owners announced a tentative deal to end the lockout early Saturday.

Players will be allowed to use team facilities on Thursday for the first time since the owners locked them out on July 1. Since a new labor deal will not be in place, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher that players will have to sign insurance waivers so that teams will not be liable if players are injured.

Teams will be allowed to provide a strength and conditioning coach as well as an athletic trainer and his staff, according to sources, but no coaches or general managers will be allowed to observe workouts and team staff are not permitted to conduct drills.

Though trainers and strength coaches are allowed to be present and assist players, they are not permitted on the floor to supervise or participate in on-court drills, a source told Stein.

"The strength and conditioning coach is only allowed to work with them in the weight room," one GM told Bucher.

Players under contract, unsigned rookies and free agents are eligible to use the facilities, sources said. All players are free to use all facilities.

The league also said owners, general managers, and coaches are now free to comment publicly about things such as contracts, plans for future free-agent signings, the team's prospects for the upcoming season, and other comments on typical topics. Teams have not been allowed to do that during the lockout and clubs were allowed to make contact with players only with league preapproval.

And they still can't talk about the league's collective bargaining agreement. At least not yet.

Since the NBA and its players reached a tentative agreement, neither side has known if workouts would be permitted before camps begin. Such informal workouts are customary, typically beginning two to three weeks before camp as players begin getting themselves into the best possible condition.

When NFL camps opened after that league's lockout earlier this year, a number of players -- it seemed more than usual, anyway -- were either injured in the preseason or rehabilitated from offseason surgeries at a slower pace than first anticipated.

One of the byproducts of the lockout is that it kept players from meeting with team physicians and trainers, as many had been used to for years, and teams tried to find the right balance between conditioning and protecting players from risking injury by doing too much too soon.

By opening at least a week before training camps formally begin, the NBA may be able to minimize those problems somewhat.

While most of the league's players have been working out on their own or in small groups for weeks anyway, many have said that little can replicate the experience of being at a true NBA facility, replete with training rooms, whirlpools, ice tubs and things of that nature.

Some players, including LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, spent time earlier this month at a makeshift training camp in Oregon in an effort to replicate the NBA workout environment.

"Anything you can do to get your body ready before training camp will help," Wade said at the time, before the tentative settlement was reached.

Allowing teams and agents to resume dialogue is also significant, because there are dozens of players who had contracts expire when last season ended and will try to either re-sign with their most recent teams or find new clubs.

Most NBA teams need to make several roster moves just to have enough players under contract for training camp, so having agents and club executives speaking now will clearly speed up that process.

The players and owners eventually came to agreement on the framework of a new 10-year collective bargaining deal, which either side may opt out of after six years. It leaves the NBA with its second shortened season (the first was the 50-game 1998-99 season), with the hope of getting in 66 games instead of a full 82-game schedule.